How Much Is 18k Gold Worth? Price Per Gram, Rings and Chains

The Short Answer

An 18k gold ring is worth its weight in grams, multiplied by 0.75, multiplied by the current gold price per gram. That figure is its melt value — the value of the actual gold in it.

18k means 18 parts gold out of 24, so 75% pure gold and 25% other metals. That is why the 0.75 is there, and it never changes. The only number that moves is the gold price, and it moves constantly.

To put a figure on it: gold was trading at about USD 4,036 per troy ounce on 16 July 2026, which works out to roughly USD 129.76 per gram, so 18k gold is worth around USD 97 per gram melted. A 5-gram 18k ring holds about USD 487 of gold. A 10-gram one, about USD 973.

If what you actually want to know is how much is 18k gold worth today, or how much is a gram of 18k gold worth today, the honest answer is that you have to look up today's price — but you only need to look up one number, and the rest is multiplication. Asking how much is 18k gold worth per ounce works the same way: 0.75 times the price per troy ounce, which came to roughly USD 3,027 on the day above.

The Formula: Three Numbers, Thirty Seconds

You need three things: the weight, the purity multiplier, and today's gold price per gram.

1. Weigh it in grams

Use a digital scale that reads to 0.1g — a kitchen scale will do, jewellery scales are better. Weigh the ring on its own. If it has stones set in it, that weight is included and it is not gold, which matters later.

2. Multiply by 0.75

That is the purity multiplier for 18k. It is fixed. 18 divided by 24 equals 0.75, which is why 18k is also stamped 750 — 750 parts pure gold per thousand. A 6-gram 18k ring contains 4.5 grams of actual gold.

3. Multiply by today's gold price per gram

Look up the current gold price and make sure you are using the per gram figure, not per ounce. The LBMA Gold Price — the international benchmark — is published both per troy ounce and per gram, and in a range of currencies including Australian dollars, British pounds, Canadian dollars, euros, Indian rupees and Singapore dollars. So the formula works wherever you are — just use your own currency's price per gram.

What 18k Gold Is Worth Per Gram

Per gram is how most people actually want this, and it is the cleanest way to compare karats. Each karat has a fixed purity, so each has a fixed fraction of the gold price. Multiply the spot price per gram by the figure in the fourth column and you have your answer, today or in five years.

The example column is a snapshot, not a promise — it was true at one moment on one day and has almost certainly moved since. The fourth column is the part worth remembering.

This also settles the 18k versus 14k question cleanly. Gram for gram, 18k gold holds about 29% more gold value than 14k (0.75 against 0.583). Not double, despite what the karat numbers suggest.

What Your Weight Is Worth: 1g to 30g

Weigh your piece, find the row. The middle column is the only thing that never changes — it is how much actual gold you are holding.

Whether you are asking how much is one gram of 18k gold worth, how much is 2 grams of 18k gold worth, how much is 3 grams of 18k gold worth, or how much is 20 grams of 18k gold worth, it is the same sum with a different first number. Same for the awkward ones in between: how much is 6 grams of 18k gold worth, how much is 7 grams of 18k gold worth, how much is 4 grams of 18k gold worth today. Find your row.

If your piece has stones, subtract their weight first or the number comes out high. Diamonds and gemstones are not gold and a scrap buyer will not pay gold rates for them — though they may be worth something separately, which is a different valuation entirely.

The Ounce Trap That Costs People 10%

This one catches almost everybody. Gold is not priced in the ounce you use for flour.

The LBMA is blunt about it: the price is quoted per troy ounce, while the everyday ounce — the avoirdupois ounce, sixteen to the pound — is 28.3495 grams. A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams.

Divide the gold price by 28.3495 instead of 31.1035 and you overstate your gold by 9.7%. On a 20-gram ring at today's prices that is roughly USD 190 of imaginary money. Always divide the per-ounce price by 31.1035 to get the per-gram price — or skip the arithmetic and look up the per-gram figure directly.

What an 18k Gold Ring Is Actually Worth

Melt value is the floor, not the whole story. Four things move a ring above or below it.

Weight

The big one, and the reason a single dollar figure for "an 18k gold ring" is meaningless. A slim band and a heavy signet can differ by ten times in gold content, so they differ by ten times in melt value. Anyone quoting you a number without asking what it weighs is guessing.

Those weight bands are indicative — weigh yours rather than trusting the row. But they show the shape of the problem: the honest answer to "how much is an 18k gold ring worth" spans more than an order of magnitude.

Stones

A diamond can be worth more than the metal holding it, or almost nothing. Either way it needs valuing separately, and scrap buyers generally will not pay you for it — they want the gold.

Craftsmanship and brand

A signed piece from a recognised maker can be worth well above melt. That premium is real but it only exists in the right market — a collector or a jeweller who resells. Take the same ring to a scrap buyer and it is just grams.

Colour

White, rose and yellow 18k are all 75% gold, so they all have the same melt value. The colour comes from what the other 25% is — palladium or nickel for white, copper for rose. White gold is usually rhodium plated on top, which affects appearance and upkeep, not gold content.

Chains, Necklaces and Bracelets

Nothing changes. Asking how much is an 18k gold necklace worth, how much is an 18k gold chain worth, or how much is an 18k gold bracelet worth gets you the same three numbers as a ring: weight in grams, times 0.75, times the gold price per gram.

The only practical difference is that chains and necklaces vary far more in weight than rings do, so estimating is even more hopeless. A fine cable chain might be 3 to 5 grams. A heavy Cuban or curb chain can run past 50 grams. That is a spread of more than ten times — the difference between a few hundred dollars and several thousand, on two things that both get described as "a gold chain".

Two things to watch on chains specifically:

• Hollow links. Plenty of chunky-looking gold chains are hollow to keep them wearable and affordable. They are still solid gold by purity, but there is far less metal there than the size suggests — and the scale will tell you the truth immediately.
• Clasps and findings. These are sometimes a different karat, or not gold at all. On a light chain that barely matters; on a valuation it is worth knowing.

Weigh it, run the formula, and treat the answer the same way as for a ring: it is the melt floor, not the offer.

Melt, Retail and What You Will Be Offered

Here is the part most pages skip. One ring has three different prices, and the gap between them is where people feel cheated.

Retail is what a jeweller charges. It covers the gold plus design, manufacture, stones, brand and margin — which is why a new ring costs multiples of its melt value the moment you buy it.

Melt value is the formula figure. It is the objective number, and it is the one you should walk in already knowing.

What you get offered is less than melt, always. A scrap buyer or pawn shop has to refine the metal, carry the price risk until they do, and make a living. That gap is a legitimate cost of doing business, not necessarily a scam — but its size varies enormously between buyers, which is exactly why knowing melt value matters. It turns "does that sound about right?" into "that is 60% of melt, and I have another quote."

Pawn shops typically offer least of all, because a pawn loan is priced against what they can recover quickly if you never come back. If you have time, getting two or three quotes — a scrap buyer, a jeweller, a specialist gold buyer — is usually worth more than the hour it costs.

Is It Really 18k? Check the 750

The whole calculation rests on the ring genuinely being 18k. Look inside the band with a loupe or a phone camera zoomed in.

You are looking for 750, or 18k, or 18ct — three ways of saying the same thing. As the Assay Office London sets out, in the UK gold fineness mark 375 is 9 carat, 585 is 14 carat, 750 is 18 carat and 916 is 22 carat — parts per thousand of pure metal. A full British hallmark also carries a sponsor's mark and an assay office mark, so the number is not just the maker's word.

A few things worth knowing:

• No stamp does not mean fake. Small or antique pieces are often exempt, and plenty of legitimate gold is unmarked. It needs testing rather than dismissing.
• A stamp does not mean genuine either. Numbers can be faked; a full hallmark from a recognised assay office is much harder to fake than a lone "750".
• "18k gold plated" is not 18k gold. If the stamp reads 18k GP, 18k HGE, 18k GF or similar, you have a base metal with a coating measured in microns. Its melt value is essentially nil.

That last one matters more than people expect, and it is the single most common reason a valuation comes in at nothing. Plated jewellery is genuinely worth owning and wearing — it is just not worth weighing. We cover the difference between 18k gold and 18k gold plated in full, along with why plated jewellery tarnishes and what gold plating actually is.

Frequently Asked Questions